


This Gray Shadow, Once a Man

by waketosleep



Series: I Have Seen the Truth (And It Doesn't Make Sense) [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Federal Agents, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Established Relationship, Fringe fusion, Gen, M/M, Paranormal, Pseudoscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:03:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waketosleep/pseuds/waketosleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Brad Colbert is on the mend and his second case with Agent Fick and Fringe Division promises not to end in a shootout. But considering it starts with a young man who died of old age, he's not sure how reassuring that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Gray Shadow, Once a Man

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel it took me a year and a half to write! It... actually sat around 95% completed for the last six months, until today I read a similarly-toned story that kicked my ass to write the last 2000 words to wrap it up. Also, it's not my Star Trek Big Bang submission so obviously it was far more attractive to work on than it would have been otherwise.
> 
> I think you'll find it helpful to have read the preceding story in the series before reading this one.
> 
> Thanks to lazulisong for beta-reading this after I dropped unsubtle hints. She's great like that. On the other hand, I'm helping her have her house to herself next weekend, so maybe it's quid pro quo.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Nate's face had that concerned look that Brad did his best to find annoying. "Just get it over with," he said. "Please."

"Okay, then." Nate took his finger off the 'Door Close' button and the elevator opened on the FBI Boston field office, fifth floor: Fringe Division.

Brad heard Ray yell, "There he is!" and as he stepped off of the elevator, Nate right behind him, scattered applause broke out. Brad blinked at the agents all standing up at their desks, clapping, and resisted the urge to look behind himself.

"What the hell, Person," he said instead, when he picked Ray out of the crowd.

"Everybody knew you got shot by the time you were in the ER, dude." Ray stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. "They've been asking me and Nate and Walt for updates. Even in this circus of freaky shit, getting shot makes you a badass."

Agent Holsey came up on Brad's left. "How's your side, Colbert?" he asked. "Lovell and I were first on scene after Fick called it in, obviously. I'm glad you pulled through."

"Thanks," said Brad, feeling awkward. "I'm still doing PT but it's healing."

"They made you get off medical leave and get your ass back to work, huh?"

"More like he almost checked himself out of the hospital AMA," Nate interrupted before Brad could answer. "At least until the Bureau refused to cover his medical bills if he did. This was the earliest Ferrando would let him back into work."

Holsey laughed while Brad glared at Nate.

"He's on light duty for the next two weeks," Nate added, remorseless.

"So are you gonna have a cool scar or what, Brad?" Ray demanded, distracting Brad from vengeful thoughts.

"Probably," he said. "Add it to the collection."

"The battle scars are how I know you're not a robot, homes," said Ray. "You bleed like a man, even if you're better than the rest of us."

"Mostly just you," said Brad, running a gauntlet of well-meaning smiles to his desk. What he was going to assume was his desk, since he'd already used it. There didn't seem to be many other options, anyway. "Chicks dig the scars, Ray," he said as he sat down, trying to hide his wince. Now that he was off the opiates, he got a nice little reminder flare of pain anytime he so much as shifted and made the stitches pull.

"You greedy bastard, why can't you pass along those chicks to your old pal Ray-Ray who's always had your back? You don't need them falling all over you anymore."

Nate huffed out a laugh as he sat in his chair across from Brad. Just as Brad was going to keep the good times rolling and insult Ray some more, Nate's desk phone rang.

"Fick," he answered it. He dug out a post-it notepad and scribbled something down as he did that nodding thing he always did. "Thanks. We're on our way over." As he hung up he said to Brad, "Don't get too comfy. We're going to the morgue."

Brad levered himself out of his chair as Ray said, "I thought he was on _light_ duty!"

"We're just going to look at a body, Ray, but thanks for your concern," said Nate.

"What if it's a zombie?" Ray asked, pointing accusingly like he'd caught Nate in a logical fallacy. "Hey, have you ever had zombies? That'd be some freaky goddamn shit. I think no matter how shitty a day I had at work, I'd still put it in the win column if there were no zombie outbreak to deal with."

"Jesus Christ," said Brad, abruptly missing the opiates. They'd made Ray pretty tolerable.

"If I were you, Nate, I'd worry that every corpse I had to look at might be one of the fast-moving zombies. It would bother me."

"Well, I never thought about it before, Ray, but I certainly will now," said Nate, looking disturbed. "Thanks for that."

"Anytime, homes."

"This is why you should never listen to him when he speaks," said Brad as they headed back to the elevator.

"Seriously, _zombies_?" Nate repeated.

"It's not a zombie," said Brad, punching the button for the garage. "They're impossible, unless someone changes the laws of thermodynamics."

"No shit," said Nate. "But I don't know what it is. All we know is that someone at the police department flagged the file for us to investigate; there were no details."

"So we have no idea what we're dealing with until we look at it?"

"Nope."

"Well," said Brad, "if it's only one zombie, that probably still counts as light duty."

"Shut up," said Nate, but he was laughing.

***

The girl manning the front desk at the morgue had dyed-black hair, predictably.

"Special Agents Fick and Colbert," said Nate. "We got a call to come in."

"I bet I know what that was for," she said mysteriously, waving at the book on the counter. "You sign in; I'll call Doc."

'Doc' was the coroner; he took one look at them and said, "You're here about one-twelve. Come on in; sorry, I was sewing up a Jane Doe. Stabbed six times in the chest, twice through the left atrium." He shook his head and led them to the storage area, where he hauled open the drawer whose plate read '112' and uncovered a man's face.

"Heart failure," he said. "He was brought in the other day."

Brad tilted his head to look at the face; the guy was in his seventies, at least. He looked up at Doc, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Is he unidentified?" Nate asked hesitantly.

"No; he was found in the hallway outside his apartment, door ajar. His name is David Weber. Here's his personal effects recovered from the body." Doc handed over a bag with a wallet in it and Nate gamely took it, pulling out the driver's license.

He looked at the card for a long time, and then he looked down at David Weber's face and said, "What?"

Brad plucked the card out of Nate's slack fingers; the picture was of a young guy with brown hair. The name printed on the license was David James Weber, and the date of birth was June 12, 1984.

"Is this his grandson's ID? Why would it be in his wallet?" Brad asked, taking a more careful look at it. It seemed genuine.

"That's his wallet and his driver's license," said Doc. "This guy is 27 years old."

Brad looked up at Nate, who was looking back at him. They looked down together at the grizzled old man on the slab; the incision from his autopsy was just visible where the sheet was folded back.

"How did you confirm this?" asked Nate. "Physical resemblance might be from a family connection and so might the name."

"Fingerprints are a pretty good clue, though," said Doc, "and the prints they pulled from inside David Weber's apartment were a match to this guy. The police interviewed his wife; they were high school sweethearts. David's grandfather died twenty years ago." Doc looked briefly uncomfortable. "Getting her to identify the body was awkward."

"Did you find anything in the autopsy?" Brad asked.

"Just the heart failure. Oh, he's got cataracts. Pretty normal workup for a guy in his twilight years, actually. I'll give you the report."

"If he's in his twilight years then I'm in trouble," muttered Brad.

"We're going to have to take the body with us," said Nate to Doc.

"If you think you can do better," said Doc, walking away, probably back to his Jane Doe. Nate pulled out his phone and called Harvard.

"Pappy?" he said. "We've got a case for you."

***

Walt was the one who met them at the lab, because Pappy and Rudy were nowhere in sight.

"They went to pick up lunch," he said cheerfully. "Hi, Brad. How's the side?"

"Good. It's nice not to be laid up on the couch for a change," said Brad, bumping fists with him.

"They just ditched you here?" asked Nate, looking around. "How long ago?"

"Like twenty minutes. I've been pipetting things all morning anyway; it's nice to steal a break. Pappy's kind of a slave driver."

"They're not working on anything I should know about, are they?" Nate's brow furrowed.

"I only took the bare minimum science electives I needed to graduate," said Walt, shrugging, "but from what I could tell they're not breaking any laws. Mostly it's a side project while they try to rebuild all those stolen notes."

"I doubt you can be too careful when it comes to those two," said Brad, leaning on the edge of a bench.

Rudy and Pappy walked in almost immediately, carrying white paper bags.

"Brad," said Rudy, his face lighting up, "you're back with us, brother."

Brad accepted a manly, back-slapping hug. "I am."

"We picked up extra food since you were coming by," said Pappy, dropping his bag on the pantry cart and pulling it open. "Turkey wraps." He tossed one at Walt. "I hope you washed your hands after you were done messing with those acid compounds," he warned.

"For like five minutes straight," assured Walt before taking a huge bite out of his food.

"So what're we looking at?" Pappy asked, glancing at the body bag laid out on one of the cleared benches.

"David Weber," said Nate, waving off a turkey wrap. "Found in the hallway outside his apartment three days ago. He's 27 years old."

They gathered around the bench with the cadaver on it as Nate unzipped the bag to expose Weber's ancient face.

"Hm," said Pappy after a long silence. He took another bite of his wrap.

" _He's_ 27?" said Walt. "What the hell killed him?"

"Old age," said Brad.

Rudy beckoned for the coroner's report and flipped through it one-handed while he ate, letting Pappy read over his shoulder.

"Dual cataracts," he muttered, pulling on a nitrile glove and lifting Weber's eyelids in turn to peer at the clouded lenses. "Probably developed spontaneously; normally people would probably have surgery before they got this bad, if they progressed normally."

"What, are cataracts a normal thing?" said Walt.

"We all get them, if we live long enough," said Rudy absently, peering at Weber's teeth and hair. "The factory parts always wear out eventually."

"But this guy aged about fifty years in the twelve hours between when his wife last saw him and his death," said Nate. "People don't do that, so what happened to him?"

Rudy and Pappy shared a look, frowning. Pappy said, "There are some genetic diseases that have accelerated aging as a symptom. Problem is, they all start at birth, not in your twenties. This is something else."

Rudy added, "Tell Agent Ferrando we need him to sign off on a full genetic workup for Mr. Weber, here. The faster the better, if you want to close this soon. We can do the rest of the blood and tissue samples we'll need on our own."

"You can't do the genetic stuff?" asked Nate.

"We don't have the equipment and the FBI can't afford it for its limited usefulness," said Pappy. "I think we could get at the biology labs on campus to do it ourselves--I know the dean pretty well--but probably the DoD's got someone contracted for that kinda thing, anyway."

"We can't tell you what this is until we get those tests done," said Rudy. "Sorry."

Brad looked at Nate; the furrow between his eyebrows was deeper and in danger of becoming permanent. "All right," Nate sighed, rubbing at his eyebrow, "we'll get that done. I want to know as soon as you've got something to tell us. Walt, we need you to come back to the office with us to start doing the background on this guy."

"They're taking away our lab assistant," Pappy muttered at Rudy.

"He's a federal agent," Nate reminded them. "Uncle Sam's got dibs."

"Whenever anyone says 'Uncle Sam', I picture Sam the Eagle," said Rudy, squinting down at the body again.

***

Brad hung up the phone; he'd just talked to one of David Weber's friends, corroborating the police report that they and two other friends had met at a pub the night before his death, and Weber had seemed generally fine. He glanced at the page of scribbled notes he'd taken during the conversation and thought of one more thing to add, but just as his pen touched the paper he heard Ray calling him from across the room, and the thought was gone.

He looked up from his desk in exasperation as Ray jogged over with a handful of paper. "What?" he asked. "Don't you do work around here?"

"Yes," insisted Ray, looking offended, but then he grinned and added, "Officially, now," and slapped all of the papers down in front of Brad.

"What the fuck is all this?" Brad turned the top sheet right way up and blinked at it.

"Our transfers finally came through," said Ray triumphantly. "After like an entire goddamn month. No one does efficiency as inefficiently as the Bureau." He leaned over the desk, flipping through the pages. "All this shit is yours; you have to sign... there." He pointed.

Brad double-checked he wasn't actually signing his life savings over to Ray or something equally goat-fucked, and then scribbled his signature on the line.

"There," said Ray. "You're property of Fringe Division now, homes." He glanced at Nate's empty desk. "Speaking of being property, where's your boyfriend?"

Brad glared at Ray long enough to be sure his displeasure had gotten across, and then he said, "He's in with Ferrando, figuring out what to do about some gene tests we need done on the old young guy."

"This isn't the Corps, Brad, no one gives a fuck that you like cock. And you two are so fucking made for each other that it makes me a little sick. Like eating too much candy." Ray pushed the papers aside and perched on the edge of Brad's desk. "Anyway. I found an apartment; it's totally sweet and it's got two bedrooms. I _was_ going to use the second one to keep my guitars and porn collection, but I'm willing to sacrifice that to keep the dream team together."

"What?" Brad leaned back in his chair, tossing the pen on the desk and nudging his laptop away from Ray's ass.

"You and me, dude. Brad and Ray-Ray. If we can't fight crime together anymore then we can still hang out and drink beer in our downtime. I'll even stay out of your way on date nights! Walt's a poor replacement for you but the kid's pretty awesome in his own way."

"He put up with you crashing at his place for this long, so he must be more impressive than he looks. I'd never fucking live with your whiskey tango ass, that's for sure."

"I wasn't gonna put my NASCAR shit up all over the place, you know, but if you're gonna be like that."

"I think I'm staying where I am," said Brad.

Ray shut up instantly. "You're moving right in with him?"

Brad shrugged. They hadn't actually discussed it in that much detail, but Nate had said something about a parking permit for Brad's bike when he got it from California, and it seemed like a done deal. He tried to picture Nate's reaction if he said he was getting his own place and found he couldn't. Frankly, the idea didn't even appeal to him.

"He helped me change my dressings and put up with me while I was drugged to the gills on Percocet, so we're probably past the discussion of designs on anyone's virtue," he said. "Seems like a waste of time and rent money just to add distance for a while."

Ray looked like he was swallowing down the start of about five different sentences before he finally said, "I know I just said you're disgustingly perfect for each other, but I'd have thought you'd be more paranoid after how your cunt of an ex left you."

"That was ten years ago," said Brad. "Maybe I grew up." It didn't bother him anymore when Ray called her names, so maybe he had.

Ray considered him in silence for a minute, which was unnerving, but finally he just said, "Cool, homes. I wish you all the best in your big gay homemaking adventure." He stood up again and added, "I'm putting a spare bed in the porn and guitars room, though. Just in case."

"Noted," said Brad, and Ray walked away whistling.

He was eyeing the phone again--there were two more friends to call--when Walt came over.

"I talked to Weber's parents," he said. "No medical history worth mentioning, and he hadn't even seen them in about six months. Just phone calls. Basically, there are no leads there."

"Not too surprising," said Brad, tapping out a thoughtless rhythm with his pen on the edge of the desk. "Who's next on your list?"

"Sister."

He nodded, and as Walt was turning to leave he said, "Hey. Person told me he's finally going to stop mooching off of you."

Walt smirked. "Yeah. Well. I bet he didn't tell you the best part."

"What's that?"

"His new place? Is still in my building. He's two floors up."

Brad snorted. "You'll never be free of him. He's got his hooks in you."

Walt shrugged. "It's not so bad, hanging out with him. Mostly, we just drink a lot of beer and play Halo. It's like the good parts of college."

Ray's ability to constantly find people who would actually put up with his shit never ceased to amaze Brad. As Walt went back to his own desk to call the sister, Brad looked down at the mess of paperwork on his desk, scooped it all up into some kind of order, and went to duck in on the end of Ferrando and Nate's meeting.

"Hey, Brad," said Nate, opening the office door for him. "Is that your transfer?"

Brad shrugged his eyebrows and grinned a little at him. "My ass now belongs to the Fringe Division."

"We're glad to have it," said Nate as he passed Brad in the doorway. From his tone, Nate knew exactly how that sounded and didn't much care. Brad couldn't quite wipe the grin off his face even as he was left facing Ferrando.

"I see Agent Person gave you your paperwork to finish," said Ferrando, holding out a hand for it. "All in order?"

"Appears to be, sir." Brad fought the urge to assume parade rest as he stood before the desk.

"Sorry it took so long," said Ferrando, flipping through it. "Agent Schwetje didn't want to let you two go; I suppose he saw your value as agents. However, he doesn't golf with the Director twice a month."

"I was just glad not to be called back to California in the interim, sir," said Brad.

"True," said Ferrando. He signed the last page of Brad's paperwork and stacked it in his out tray. "Well, it's all over with now." He held out a hand. "Welcome to Fringe Division, Agent Colbert. We'll try not to let you get shot again," he added as Brad shook his hand.

"Thank you, sir; I hope not."

"Make sure you submit all your receipts for moving expenses. Now, how's your investigation into that body going?"

"Not well, sir. I hope the gene tests reveal what we're looking at."

"Well, they're being done at our contracted lab facilities, so it'll be a couple days. See what you can dig up in the meantime."

Nate was back at his desk when Brad left Ferrando's office.

"We're spinning wheels for a couple days, it seems," he said when Brad sat down across from him. His brief look of concern meant that Brad hadn't covered his wince as well as he'd hoped, but since he didn't say anything about it, Brad didn't have to lie about how his wound was throbbing.

"Well," said Brad, reaching for his phone to call another of David Weber's friends, "It's nothing I haven't done before."

***

No progress on the case and no fires to put out meant the unthinkable happened: they got to leave at five o'clock.

"What the hell are we going to do with all this free time?" Brad joked.

Nate looked thoughtful. "I could cook."

"You can make dinner without the microwave or a take-out menu?" Brad pretended to be impressed.

Nate glared. "I can. And now that you're not too high to eat anything but toast, you might remember that I did."

"I can't wait."

"And you're on dish duty."

"Fuck. Let's get Thai instead."

Nate chuckled and his hand landed warm on the small of Brad's back as they made their way to the parking garage.

They chatted idly about random bullshit on the way home, and then while Nate was changing out of his suit, Brad slipped into the bathroom and swallowed three Advil dry, touching his side gingerly. The pain wasn't the same as it had been at first, anytime the drugs had worn off. It had a duller quality, more like background noise, and he could tolerate it for most of a day without chemical help. He just wished it would heal faster.

"Does steak sound good?" asked Nate, fully dressed in his favourite ratty jeans and a t-shirt when Brad went back into the bedroom. "I think there's some in the freezer."

"What kind of question is that?" Brad asked as he undid his tie.

Nate interrupted him by using the tie to gently pull him down into a kiss. "Mmm," he said against Brad's mouth after a minute. "Fair point."

Brad kissed him again before he could pull away, because steak also meant fewer dishes to wash.

They lingered in each other's personal space for a moment, and Nate reached up to finish undoing Brad's tie. "Have those Advil kicked in yet?" he asked.

Brad cursed him mentally. "It's not that bad."

"Be careful or you'll just bench yourself again. You've still got PT this week," Nate reminded him, slipping the tie from around Brad's neck and giving it to him before stepping back.

"Thanks, Mom," said Brad.

"All I'm saying is that if I have to babysit you again, I'm probably going to smother you with a pillow in your sleep, and I wouldn't do well in prison. Baked or boiled potatoes?" said Nate from the doorway.

"Whatever's faster," Brad called back, peeling off the rest of his clothes and going for a pair of jeans and a faded Ripcurl t-shirt. He really needed to get the rest of his clothes.

Nate had water going on the stove when he walked into the kitchen, and he had apparently also been reading Brad's mind. "So are you going to take a weekend and fly out to get your stuff, or what?"

Brad sighed at the thought of moving. "It's gonna take more than that. I'll have to take some time off. I have to pack up and sell my house, figure out how to get my bike here, figure out what to do with my boards. My folks can probably help out with some of it; it's not like they didn't when I used to be overseas or when I went to Quantico."

"You own a house?" Nate asked, surprised.

It was, in fact, Brad's second house. "Seemed like a good idea at the time," he said. "But it's near the beach, so it'll sell fast. I'll probably ride my bike back," he mused. That would probably have to wait till he got a full bill of health, sadly, although riding with stitches in his side wasn't really a big fucking deal. The bike could sit in his parents' garage until he could get away with it.

"You want me to come out and help?" Nate asked.

That would mean introducing Nate to his parents and sister. And explaining how he'd moved in with a guy basically right after meeting him. "Can Ferrando spare both of us at once?" he asked.

"Probably not," said Nate.

"Don't worry about it, then," said Brad, relieved.

Nate finished peeling and cutting the potatoes and dropped them all into the pot of boiling water. "The offer stands anyway. I have vacation saved up."

"And you want to use it helping people move?"

"I have a _lot_ of vacation saved up. They've been nagging me to take some."

Brad watched Nate's back as he took the steak out of the freezer and put it in the microwave to thaw. Nate was definitely the kind of person who'd have years of unused vacation banked. Maybe Brad would have to do something about that. But not taking him to LA. Not yet, anyway.

He went to the fridge and pulled out two beers, handing one to Nate. "We'll figure it out," he said, trying to believe it.

***

Since they were still waiting on lab results, the next day of work was shaping up to be that hurry-up-and-wait that Brad had lived every day in the Corps and had never gotten any good at. He spent the morning glaring at his laptop screen, closing out old cases he'd been working in LA and filing some late reports. Nate stepped out just before eleven, trailing fingertips along the shoulder of his suit jacket in goodbye as he walked past Brad's desk. Brad gave him an absent nod and hardly paused his typing.

It was almost half past when Ray stood up from his own desk across the bullpen. "Just when I thought I was going to have to hang myself from boredom," he declared to the room at large, and then he zeroed in on Brad as he always did.

"Where the fuck is the esteemed Agent Fick _now_? I'm beginning to think he avoids me," Ray declared, dropping into Nate's chair.

"If he were a smarter man or a better listener, he'd definitely be avoiding you," said Brad, not looking up from his computer. "But he's out at a meeting."

"Without you, homes?"

"It's his goddamn meeting, Ray. I, for one, am always glad to hear that a meeting doesn't require my attendance." Brad saved his file and leaned back in his chair, covering a wince before remembering Nate was gone. He yanked open his desk drawer and fished out a bottle of Advil. Some days were better than others.

"How long till that shit heals?" Ray asked, watching him swallow two pills dry.

"It's a lot better than it was." Brad shut the drawer. "Why are you bothering me? The Bureau keeps you plenty busy enough not to spend half your time following me around like a little girl with a crush, Ray."

"Progress," said Ray, looking self-satisfied. "We've got a fucking lead, man."

"On the aging thing? We're not supposed to have the lab results before tomorrow. And I'm pretty sure you're not on that case, anyway."

"No, I'm not," Ray agreed. "You and Nate have that fine mess all in hand, I'm sure. This is the other shit. Pappy and Rudy's clusterfuck."

Brad sat up straighter. "The missing notes?"

"The very same. We had a hit today on large local purchases of some lab-grade chemicals whose names I can neither pronounce nor spell, but which are nonetheless flagged in our system."

"Pappy and Rudy flagged them?"

"Rudy told me that if we heard of anyone buying that shit at that volume, it was probably for nefarious purposes related to some machine he and Paps dreamed up. Turns lead to gold or something, fuck if I know what. Anyway, either it's for that or they're cutting a fuck of a lot of cocaine." Ray slapped the arms of Nate's chair excitedly. "I'm gonna go find out which. Walt's back on babysitting detail; do you want to be my busting buddy?" he said coyly.

Brad gave his half-finished report a guilty look.

"Am I tearing you away from your busy-work? What, are you writing your goddamn memoirs?" Ray waved at the laptop. "Since when would you rather sit at your desk than go out in the field?"

"I got shot a month ago," Brad reminded him. "I'm supposed to behave myself."

"Pussy-whipped! I promise to call the narcos at the first whiff of a drug lab, dude. No impromptu raids while you're on the DL." Ray made what was probably supposed to be the Boy Scout salute.

Brad gave in. His ass was going numb, anyway. "Let me finish this report and then I'll go with you."

"Half-ass that shit, dude. It's only for Encino Man anyway; since when do you owe that inbred jock in a tie any favours? You type your 'and then they lived happily ever after in prison, the end' while I go give Ferrando our sitrep and then we roll out." He pumped his fist in the air once as he sauntered across the bullpen to Ferrando's office.

Brad hammered out the last few pertinent facts while Ray returned and twirled his keys obnoxiously beside Brad's desk, and then they were off.

"Colbert and Person, riding out one more time for justice and glory!" Ray crowed as he punched their button inside the elevator.

"And the American fucking way," Brad finished.

"Fucking right."

"You're such a retard."

"I'm off the fucking hook, homes, my shit is so tight. In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey."

"What the fuck," said Brad, regretting his life choices.

"Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie with the plastic eyeballs, spraypaint the vegetables, dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose! Kill the headlights and put it in neutral, stock car flaming with a loser in the cruise control, baby's in Reno with the vitamin D, got a couple of couches, sleep on the loveseat! Someone came saying I'm insane to complain about a shotgun wed--"

Brad slapped his hand over Ray's mouth and watched him sag in defeat. They stared at each other while the elevator door opened on the garage level and then Ray nodded at him sadly.

Brad removed his hand and stepped out into the garage.

Ray ran after him, arms in the air. " _Soy un perdedor!_ I'm a loser baby! So why don't you kill me!"

"I'll write it up as an accidental discharge, too," said Brad, striding toward Ray's ride.

"You were cooler when you were high on meds," said Ray. "Now that fucking stick's back up your ass. Why can't we sing in the car like we used to, Brad?"

"Because I traded you for Nate to never have to hear your weak-ass singing voice again," said Brad, yanking the passenger side door open and sliding in.

"That's insulting, man. Here I thought you only gave up your once-in-a-lifetime chance to sing duets with _the dude whose band once opened for Limp Bizkit_ because all the sex you're getting was clouding your judgment. And I couldn't even blame you for that logic." He started the car.

"What sex?" Brad said before he could think better of it.

The car lurched as Ray slammed on the brakes in the middle of backing out of his parking spot. "Excuse me?"

Brad waited for his head to stop rattling. "There hasn't been much in the way of sex," he elaborated, thinking carefully about all the reasons he wasn't allowed to just shoot Ray. The paperwork, for one. "I got shot before we probably would have hooked up."

"And now?" Ray asked carefully.

Brad huffed. "He's scared I'll pop my stitches and end up back in the hospital because that counts as the 'strenuous activity' I'm not supposed to be doing until they clear me for duty again. So we haven't gotten up to much."

Ray laughed as he guided the car out of the garage. "That's rough, Brad."

Brad looked out the side window. "He's probably right. After waiting this long, I'd feel like I wasn't trying hard enough if I didn't pop my stitches."

Ray's laugh became a cackle. "Damn, you are one nasty motherfucker."

Brad grinned.

***

"You're sure this is the place?" Brad asked.

They stared out the window at the strip mall a moment longer. Out of four bays, two had 'For Lease' signs, one was a Vietnamese restaurant that seemed to be closed, and the last was a hair salon called 'Roots to Wings'.

"Google Maps has failed me again," said Ray. Brad glared and he put his hands up quickly. "That was a fucking joke, all right? I am in fact aware that Street View is not a tool of good investigative strategy. But this is the address on the shipping manifest I pulled up. Look: it's 1142 and the buildings on either side corroborate." He undid his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. "I'm going to go check out the salon. Want me to see if I can get you a deal on a full-body wax while I'm in there?"

"I'm coming in with you," said Brad, undoing his own seatbelt. "You need adult supervision."

They peered in the windows of the empty bays first; the restaurant was full of empty booths and chairs upside-down on tables, and the others were just floors and walls. The most interesting thing Brad could spot was a forgotten tape measure in a far corner of one of them. The door jingled as they walked into the hair salon, which was so pastel-coloured it made Brad feel itchy; the teenager on reception blinked at them and Ray held up his badge. "Is your manager in?"

The manager was apparently in the middle of applying foil to some lady's hair and made them come stand near the chair to question her while she worked.

"What can we do for you gentlemen?" she asked, glancing at Ray and smiling at Brad before folding tin foil under another lock of hair and then painting it with violently pink dye.

"We're looking into a delivery made to this building recently," said Ray. "It was a lot of potassium permanganate."

"We don't use that here," said the salon manager, picking up another piece of tinfoil between french-manicured talons. "Although I can't speak for what's in the hair dye, we get that ready-made." She smiled at them tightly.

"What about the other bays in the building?" Ray asked.

"The restaurant closed a month ago. No skin off our noses; the pho gave Cindy food poisoning. The other two bays were..." She trailed off, looking thoughtfully into the mirror and frowning. "A UPS Store and a tanning salon," she said after a minute, snapping her talons as she remembered. Brad eyed them warily. "But they've both been empty six, eight months. The building manager keeps saying one of them's going to have renos start soon but he's said that before."

Ray looked up at Brad expectantly. Brad didn't know what the fuck he was supposed to do to help.

"Did that help you two at all?" the manager asked absently, moving past Brad to start damaging other parts of her customer's head.

"Absolutely no weird deliveries?" Ray tried. "No random DHL vans or anything?"

"Nope. I'm here every damn day."

"I hear that," piped up the customer.

Ray looked like he was having indigestion; before he could remember to follow through on his threats about waxes, Brad said, "Thanks, ma'am. Have a good day."

"We do men's cuts," she said, looking him up and down. Ray made a choking noise.

"We're good, thanks," said Brad, smiling with some teeth as he grabbed Ray by the elbow and started hauling him away.

***

Nate was at his desk when they got back. "Where've you been?" he asked, flipping through a file.

"Fresh air," said Brad, sitting down and opening his laptop again.

"Chasing empty leads on Pappy and Rudy's missing notes," said Ray. "But a cougar almost gave our man Bradley her digits!" He punched Brad in the shoulder and walked away, having thoroughly fucked up Brad's life, and Brad could only helplessly watch him go.

"You were out in the field backing up Ray?" Nate asked. When Brad turned to face him, he was staring back and his mouth was a thin line.

"Just checking out an address that supposedly received a big batch of chemicals." Brad poked at his touchpad until his next half-finished report came up. It was looking more appealing than it had an hour ago.

"Chemicals could mean drugs."

"It was a hair salon and a restaurant with a bad record of cleanliness. No apparent deliveries of chemicals, either."

"You couldn't know that before you went out there. So you went out to this address knowing that you might find evidence of illegal drug activity at the scene."

"We'd have called in the LEOs if that had been the case," said Brad. It didn't sound as reasonable now.

"Assuming you didn't get made and no one freaked the fuck out about having the feds sniffing around. Brad, you are on light duties. Light. That means no putting yourself in danger on the job, because you aren't in any condition to react appropriately to that kind of situation."

"Nothing fucking happened, all right?" Brad struggled to keep his voice down. "I'm not a rookie and neither is Ray. We were careful about approaching the situation and I trusted him to have my back if anything had happened. Which it didn't."

"You trusted him to have your back."

"He's always come through before." Brad lowered his voice more and leaned over the desk so that Ray couldn't hear him offering up praise. "I know he's an idiot around the office but in a situation, he's a cold, competent son of a bitch. We came from LA; there isn't an agent there who hasn't done a raid."

Nate's face was pinched. "Jesus Christ, Brad." He sounded tired.

The worst part about being nagged like this was that Brad actually felt like shit about it. "All right," he said. "I'm sorry. It wasn't very smart. I'll stay at my desk and do paperwork and only go to boring places with no chance of a firefight until I'm cleared again."

That made Nate snort. "I didn't like seeing you in the hospital," he said after a minute. "Losing one partner was bad."

"I know."

"I didn't mean to imply that you don't know what you're doing. You've got the experience to back you up."

"I went a little crazy with boredom. I should know better than to think Ray has good ideas."

Nate sagged in his chair. "I want a nap. And a day off."

"I don't think Ferrando would sign off on mandated naptime," said Brad seriously.

Nate rubbed at his eyes. "Fuck it. Let's get lunch, then."

Brad stood up. "You, on the other hand, have excellent ideas."

"You're buying. It's your tax for stupidity." Nate picked up his jacket.

"Fine. What's after lunch?"

"Interviews with the vic's friends."

"We're going to get more out of them in person than on the phone?"

"I doubt it," said Nate, heading for the elevator, "but if we make them tell the same story enough times, they might accidentally give us something useful. Don't you LA guys brute-force all _your_ cases?"

"No, we just let the LEOs have the perps until they're desperate to roll up for us."

"That reminds me more of back home," said Nate, holding the elevator door for Brad.

***

Brad sat across from a douche who thought plaid shirts and sport jackets should be worn together, tapping his pen absently on the table. Inside his mind he was still enjoying pizza by the slice and watching Nate laugh himself sick at the story of the hair salon manager undressing him with her eyes.

"So all four of you were at the bar between the hours of seven and ten?" he asked.

Douchebag--Chris, Brad amended with a glance at his interview notes--shifted in his chair. "Correct. Dave left at ten and the rest of us hung around to finish the pitcher. I think I rolled out around ten-thirty."

"Is that an early night for you?"

"Not anymore. I get up for work really early."

"How about for Dave?"

Chris looked around the interview room as though anyone might be eavesdropping on something this boring, and then he said, slightly hushed, "Look, when I talked to you on the phone, my girlfriend was in the room, and she and Dave's wife are friends."

Brad waited.

"He had a girlfriend on the side," Chris confessed. "He told me about her once. I think they were still seeing each other. When he left the bar, he said he had some shit to do before he went home. At ten on a Friday night?"

Brad sat up a little straighter. Finally. "Name?"

"I don't know."

Brad dropped his pen.

"Sorry, he didn't tell me her name! But she's been around for months. Maybe a year. I don't know, he just told me about it in the summer."

While Chris looked around the interview room mulishly, Brad turned over this non-lead in his head. He was willing to bet it was worth figuring out how to get more information. Then he struck on it. "Is there going to be a memorial?"

Chris blinked. "It's tomorrow."

Brad grabbed his pen again. "What time?"

***

"Okay," said Nate as Brad strolled out of his interview, "maybe I was overselling it on us getting any information in person."

Brad sat at his desk with a brilliant smile.

"What? What happened? You didn't kill him?" Nate shot a look at the room but blinked when Chris exited and headed for the elevator.

"Our victim," said Brad with relish, "was a cheating bastard."

"No, say it isn't so," said Nate.

"I'm afraid it's true. I don't have her name but she might be at the memorial service, which is tomorrow at ten." Brad held up the notepad he'd scribbled the time and place on.

Nate took the pad and frowned at it. "You had me hoping this was an actual lead."

Brad leaned back in his chair. "I'm pretty sure it was you who was going on about brute-forcing cases this morning. Now you get to show me how it's done. Wear something nice and somber."

Nate tossed the pad back at him. "You don't get to rub my face in this unless something comes of it."

Brad grinned.

***

The church was about three-quarters full of mourners, most of them family and a lot of younger people. Nate and Brad glanced around from the back of the nave; the last stragglers were settling down before the service began.

"How the hell is this going to work?" Nate asked, but then his pocket buzzed. "It's Pappy," he said when he took out his phone, patting Brad's arm before ducking back outside to answer it.

Brad scanned the crowd repeatedly, frowning, and came back to the same person three times. One woman, mid-twenties, sitting alone in the back of the crowd with an empty pew buffering her from the rest of the mourners. She had a packet of tissues open in her lap. Brad straightened his jacket and walked up to her.

"Do you mind?" he asked quietly, gesturing at the empty space between her and the end of the pew.

She looked flustered but managed a watery smile. "Go ahead."

Brad sat down and looked up at the photo of Weber at the front of the church. "How did you know him?" he asked.

"Um," she said. "We were friends."

"I'm Brad," he said, deciding to go for broke.

"Carolyn."

"So were you and Dave close?" he asked.

"Yeah. Pretty close."

"How come you're back here by yourself instead of up front with his other close friends?"

Carolyn was silent for a second. "How did you know him again?" she asked finally.

Fuck it, Brad thought. He was certain this was the woman he was looking for. "Posthumously." He pulled out his card. "I'm investigating his death. Come in and talk to us."

She stared at him for a second before taking the card. "Why is the FBI investigating his death? Oh, god, was he murdered?"

"That's part of the investigation. Call that number and set up an interview."

"What if I have nothing to say?"

Brad considered her; she was giving him her best 'fierce resolve' but it wasn't selling well with the running mascara and trembling lip. He leaned in closer for privacy and said softly, "If it turns out we have a murder investigation on our hands, the mistress has a motive and we'll come knocking on your door with a warrant. Come in willingly, Carolyn."

She burst into tears. Brad looked away uncomfortably and saw that the service was gearing up and Nate was just inside the door of the church.

'We good?' Nate mouthed at him.

Brad nodded and ducked out of the pew. His first breath of cold, wet autumn air outside felt like it was lifting a weight from his shoulders.

"Was that her?" Nate asked as they went down the steps to the sidewalk.

"It was."

Nate gave him an admiring look. "How'd you figure it out?"

"My investigative superpowers," said Brad. "What'd Pappy have to say?"

"Tests are done," Nate beamed. "He and Rudy are going over them now."

Brad grinned back. "You're chipper."

"We've got the tests, we've got the girlfriend. We might have the _case_ soon."

"That is way too optimistic," said Brad.

"I've got a good feeling," said Nate, smiling wide, and at that Brad couldn't restrain himself from kissing him.

"Mmm," Nate hummed as they separated. "I like your style, Colbert, but it's starting to rain and we have work to do. Come on."

And so they made their way through the first fat, cold raindrops to Nate's SUV.

***

At the Harvard basement lab, Walt greeted Nate and Brad as he staggered past with two stuffed boxes of files, his voice muffled by the top one. Brad spotted Rudy and Pappy off by the wall, Pappy sacked out on the couch and Rudy perched beside him on a stool as they flipped through reports. There was a blast radius of paper surrounding them.

"What's the good word, Pappy?" Nate called as he made his way down the stairs, Brad on his tail. Brad picked up a folder that Walt had dropped.

"Walt reorganizing your filing system?" Brad asked, flipping open the folder absently. It seemed to contain recipes; he closed it again.

"Yes, he is," said Walt, jogging back over to pluck the folder out of Brad's hands. He had a pleading look on his face that Brad pretended not to see before he turned around again.

"Well," Pappy was saying as Brad caught up to the other three again, "if our boy had aged more naturally, he would have died bald as a cue ball. He's got a couple interesting genetic spurs and he was also a carrier for Alzheimer's."

"Genetic spurs?" Nate seized on hopefully.

"Nothing exciting. Just unique. As genetics always are when you look close enough." Pappy flipped another page and frowned at it. "Walt," he called, "can you make some more coffee?"

Walt yelled back an affirmative from the office he was turning upside down. Brad sighed and then found a pair of stools to pull up for himself and Nate to join the party properly. The floor, he could see now, was covered in David Weber's test results. Several copies.

"I just don't know, fellas," Pappy went on. "This could take... I mean, we don't even know what we're looking for. This is a needle in a haystack situation, assuming we're even barking up the right tree."

"Stop stacking metaphors," Rudy said absently, scanning his stack of pages.

"You know what they say," said Pappy, grinning at his papers, "a penny saved's worth two in the bush."

Rudy sucked his bottom lip into his mouth to keep from laughing, which clearly wasn't helping. "Remind me why I came back?" he asked sternly when he'd gotten himself under control again.

"The FBI dragged you, kicking and screaming."

"Guys..." Nate started.

"We're looking! This is how we work," said Pappy, waving vaguely at Nate.

"Oh," said Rudy suddenly, "Werner's."

"You're lying." Pappy hauled himself into a half-sitting position and took the page Rudy had just highlighted.

"It's right there, my man. The WRN gene."

"What's Werner's?" Nate asked.

"Werner Syndrome is one of the genetic disorders we were telling you about before," said Rudy. "It manifests with premature aging and a predisposition to cancer."

"But you said he didn't have anything like that," said Brad. "Because those disorders show up younger."

"He was an asymptomatic carrier," said Rudy, stealing his paper back from Pappy. "So he could pass it on as a recessive gene but he was never going to develop it himself."

"That explains nothing," said Nate.

"The problem," said Rudy, "is that there's a mutation on his WRN gene that I don't think you normally see on a carrier."

"A mutation," suggested Brad, "that might make him start showing symptoms of having the actual disorder?"

Rudy stood up, still staring at the page. "I need to make some phone calls."

Brad took one look at Nate and said, "Great, let us know as soon as you've got something concrete." He got to his feet and threw an arm over Nate's shoulders, guiding him off his stool and pointing him at the door as Pappy and Rudy forgot they were there and Walt crossed the room with a full pot of coffee, possibly to pour into an IV. Brad gave Walt a vague wave that he may or may not have seen but that was a low priority; Brad's mission was to get Nate back out into the fresh air.

They were heading down the front steps of the building onto the quad before Brad came up with an opening line.

"Science is a fickle mistress," he said.

Nate exhaled loudly. "One step forward and two steps back," he said to the orange and brown tree canopy overhead.

"I know," said Brad. "I know. But that wasn't bad news."

"It wasn't any kind of news. It was 'more at eleven'."

Brad rubbed his thumb up against a tense muscle in the back of Nate's shoulder and Nate's head obligingly rolled forward.

"You have any work that urgently needs to be done this afternoon?" Brad asked.

"Define 'urgently'," said Nate after a second of thought.

"Okay, we're taking an early one. I'll call it in."

"We can't, I have--"

Brad shushed him. "You don't have. You have busywork in triplicate and whatever new shit comes across your desk. If the place burns down I'm sure we'll be the first ones they call."

"But the mistress," Nate tried. "What if she--"

"I gave her my direct number," said Brad, "she'll call my cell phone. Which I promise to leave on."

Brad felt him giving up in the way Nate's muscles relaxed under his hand. "Do you have a counter-argument for everything that could possibly come out of my mouth right now?" he asked.

"Having only a plan B is for amateurs. My planning tree generally goes to plan M," said Brad, curling his hand possessively around the side of Nate's neck and enjoying the way Nate leaned into it.

"And the plan for when I finally concede to your superior logic?" Nate prompted. There was a smile creeping across his face.

"We go home," said Brad, running his thumb over the bump at the top of Nate's spine. "And once we're there, you can pick from plans G through S."

Nate started laughing. "I'm willing to bet every single one of those plans goes against your doctor's orders of no strenuous activity."

Brad leaned into Nate's ear, refusing to be defeated. "Not true. I think you'll find plan Q complies just fine."

Nate definitely shivered, which was promising, but then as they reached the car he straightened suddenly. "Put that on hold. If we're not going back to the office then we need to go to the grocery store."

"The grocery store," Brad repeated flatly, waving a sad mental goodbye to plan Q.

"People who aren't off their asses on pain medication need to go there on occasion to buy food so they can eat it later."

"That sounds like bullshit to me," said Brad. "I personally make a point of having international cuisine just a phone call away."

"The grocery store," repeated Nate. "We're going. Today. Now."

"Stop trying to give me orders. You're making grocery shopping seem sexy."

Nate leaned in until their lips were nearly touching. "And the post office," he whispered.

Fuck it, Brad was just going to modify plan Q.

***

Brad had a revelation in the grocery store. For some reason, even waking up to see all of the daily variations on Nate's bedhead hadn't driven home for him that he was playing house like just seeing Nate grab a grocery cart did. As they walked into the produce section, Brad tried to remember the last time he'd gone to the grocery store with another person (besides Ray, for beer runs). He was thinking it was close to a decade. And he'd been sleeping with the last person he'd bought fruit and bread with, too.

Jesus Christ.

Nate pulled two white onions off of a display, gave them a cursory once-over and dropped them in the cart. "What do you eat besides what's put in front of you, anyway?" he asked as they walked past a heap of potatoes.

"I'm not picky," said Brad. "Picky eaters don't make good Marines." But he obligingly grabbed a bag of carrots. He was pretty sure they didn't have any carrots.

"I guess not," said Nate. "Do you cook?"

"I _can_ cook. That's what you're asking me, right?" Brad shot him a look and then decided to let him off. "It's not really a hobby but I cook basic shit. My mom wouldn't let me leave home until I could."

"She sounds formidable," said Nate, picking up tomatoes and then directing them over to the fruit section, where he grabbed a bag of green apples and some bananas. "Produce this time of year is depressing."

"In Boston it is," Brad agreed.

Nate huffed out a laugh. "Do you miss California?" he asked after a minute.

They left the produce section and Brad directed them down the juice aisle for a carton of orange. He wondered what the right answer was and then decided to settle for the truth. "I miss surfing. And my bike."

"Your bike at least, you can bring here. I probably wouldn't try surfing this far north."

Even the highways weren't the same here, though. "Yeah," Brad said anyway. It wasn't like he was going back to California. Some doors were just harder to shut.

"Soup?" Nate asked, and Brad dragged himself out of a reverie to find they weren't in the juice aisle anymore. After staring at the soup display, he just shrugged.

Nate reached out to pull cans from the shelf, his tie hanging out over the shopping cart, and Brad realized the picture they made, two guys in the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon, still in work clothes and sharing a cart. They might as well have had signs around their necks: LIVING TOGETHER.

He decided to let it go, and enjoyed the way his fingers brushed Nate's when he took a can of soup to drop in the cart.

When Brad paid at the cashier, Nate loaded the bags back in the cart and said, "I could get used to this."

"You're putting them all away," said Brad, grabbing the cart handle.

"Like hell," said Nate, dodging when Brad made to push the cart into his leg.

When they finally, finally made it home and Nate had brought the last bag inside, Brad pounced, shoving him back against the fridge and sucking Nate's bottom lip into his mouth. He could dimly hear groceries hitting the floor before Nate's hands were in his hair.

"Impatient," Nate managed when they broke apart for air.

"I put the milk and ice cream away already," said Brad against his mouth, grabbing him by the lapels and hauling him into the living room. Nate went without protest, one hand up the back of Brad's suit jacket as Brad shoved him down onto the couch and straddled his lap.

"What plan was this again?" Nate gasped as Brad kissed him under the jaw while fumbling with the knot on his tie.

"The one with no talking," said Brad, kissing him on the lips again. Nate moaned and Brad surged forward, exploring Nate's mouth with his tongue and flinging Nate's tie back somewhere over the coffee table before going to work on his shirt buttons. "What's an afternoon off if you're not trying to unwind?" There was an undershirt in Brad's way and he was debating how to get the button-down and jacket off with maximum efficiency when Nate grabbed his wrists.

"You're going to tear your stitches and that is doing nothing for my stress levels," he said sternly.

"I'm fine," said Brad, leaning in to kiss him again. "But we can move to the bed if you want, more ergonomic."

The next thing Brad knew, he was flat on his back on the couch, looking up at Nate, who was moving to sit on his thighs and pinning an arm across his chest. "You're not fine, you're fucking crazy," he said, but he was reaching down to undo Brad's pants so Brad kept his mouth shut.

"Fuck," he hissed when Nate's hand gripped his dick. He tried to arch up but Nate's weight on his legs and leaning hard on his chest kept him still.

"Don't move," Nate whispered, moving his hand.

Brad squirmed helplessly before sagging into the couch cushions. He was rewarded with wonderful friction from Nate's hand.

"I hate you," he said through gritted teeth.

"I hate you too," grinned Nate, pupils blown wide.

***

Brad woke up in the bed around dinnertime; Nate was still asleep, his back to Brad and his shoulders curving bare above the blankets. Brad stretched out a little at a time, swallowed a noise at the ache in his wound, and sat up slowly. Good thing Nate hadn't seen that or Brad would never be getting laid again.

He eased himself out of the bed, hauled on a pair of jeans and made his way quietly to the kitchen. All of the groceries were still on the floor. He'd just grabbed the first bag--the fruit--when his phone beeped from the counter. There was a text from Ray about afternoon delights that he deleted with a little snort of laughter, and a voicemail from Carolyn looking to set up that interview. She'd called an hour before; just a little time to think about it after the memorial service then, before she'd called him. Brad glanced at the time on his phone before calling her back.

He was putting today in the win column. Maybe he was even feeling magnanimous enough to cook. Or at least order.

***

"State your full name," said Brad.

"Carolyn Charice Johnson."

"Age."

"Twenty-five."

"Address."

"Unit 3, 1740 Commonwealth, Brighton."

Carolyn shifted in her chair and Brad tapped the end of his pen on his notepad, giving her a little smile. "You're not under arrest."

"I know," she said, looking down at her hands. "I just. Nothing. Let's get on with it."

Brad gentled his voice a little. "You were in a sexual relationship with David Weber?"

"Yeah. Yes."

"When did it start?"

"Last June."

Brad made a note. "So it lasted a year and a half? You were still seeing each other when he died?"

She just nodded. Brad gave her a few seconds to compose herself.

"Did you see him on the Friday night before he was found?"

"I did."

"His friends stated he left the bar at ten; what time did he meet you?"

"We met at my place around ten-thirty. He stayed until two."

"You had sex?"

"Yes."

"Did you talk about anything in particular? Anything out of the ordinary?"

"No. Just life. Work and stuff. Nothing much."

"Did he seem in any way odd? Unwell?"

Carolyn shook her head quickly, her face starting to crumple. "He was fine!" she choked out. "And then!"

Brad sat back as she yanked a kleenex out of her bag. He peered at his notes as she blotted at her eyes; there was nothing here. Nothing interesting, just illicit sex.

"Were you two planning on--" he mulled over his words, "--changing your relationship in any way?" he tried finally.

"No," she said, muffled, into the kleenex. "We were pretty happy with the status quo."

He dropped his pen on the pad; it rolled off and clattered onto the interview table. "All right," he said, getting up slowly. "That's all I need from you, Carolyn."

She crumpled the kleenex in her fingers as she stood up. "Are you sure?"

Brad laid a light hand between her shoulders to guide her to the exit. "We'll call you if we need anything else."

She stopped at the door suddenly; her back pressed into Brad's hand. "You're not going to tell his wife, are you?"

"The entire case is classified," Brad prevaricated.

"I just, I think it's bad to have your impressions of someone ruined after they've died if you saw them a certain way."

That was sweet of the little home-wrecker, Brad mused. "I don't see us needing to bring the situation up at this time," he settled on, and Carolyn nodded and left.

Ray materialized beside him as Brad watched her make her way to the elevator bank.

"You _sure_ that's not the widow?" Ray asked, looking up at him.

"She's very emotional," Brad agreed, watching the elevator doors close behind her.

"So did that crack your case open or what?" Ray peered at Brad's notes but he still couldn't make heads or tails of the chicken-scratch even after their years of partnership.

"It did the opposite of that. She appears to be innocent of wrongdoing insofar as the death is concerned."

"She _appears_ ," said Ray. "I think you're deducing."

"I don't really like to believe anyone offhand." Brad started toward his desk. "I'm gonna run a background check on her."

"Check fast," said Ray, glancing at his watch. "Isn't Nate due back from his little weekly meeting soon? I think he's hoping for good news, and if it's not on the case then you might have your hand forced, homes."

"Forced how, Ray?" Brad asked his computer screen.

"Proposing marriage, duh."

Brad glared at him until he left.

***

When Nate returned fifteen minutes later, Brad didn't have any good news for him. But he didn't have any bad news, and he was wondering if he could spin that.

"Interview all done?" Nate asked.

"All done," Brad confirmed.

"And? Do we get to arrest anybody?"

"We don't. Save your handcuffs for later." Brad allowed himself a tiny smirk as he scrolled down the notes he'd pulled up on Carolyn Johnson of 1740 Commonwealth Avenue. She had a couple of minor traffic tickets and a security check for work.

"Well, what did you find out?" Nate asked, sitting down and turning on his computer.

"She works for Massive Dynamic," said Brad. He blinked; the thought hadn't really paused in his brain between his reading it off the screen and opening his mouth.

"Massive Dynamic, the shady corporation whose research interests may have stolen Rudy and Pappy's notes?" Nate asked, a shade of hopefulness in his voice.

"The same. She is--" Brad pursed his lips as he read the information, "--a janitor."

They were silent for a second.

"Probably not a secret title for mad scientists," Brad added.

"No," agreed Nate. "I don't wake up in the morning expecting to be that lucky. Not anymore."

"This job has made you jaded, Nate."

Nate had his mouth open to reply when his cell phone rang. His face was rueful as he dug into his jacket pocket for it.

"Fick here," he said, and then looked at Brad, mouthing 'Walt'.

"They did?" he said after a second, looking tense. "And? Speak English, Walt." Nate gnawed on his lip as he listened. "What? Great. Great, that's great. We'll be right--he is? I'll check. Great work, you guys."

He didn't leave Brad hanging long when he hung up. "Pappy and Rudy finished calling their guys or whatever, and apparently Weber was infected with a bloodborne pathogen that somehow--I didn't understand this part--somehow reacted with his gene that carried Werner Syndrome. It had to have acted pretty quickly, like we're talking days, hours maybe, to accelerate him from mid-twenties to dead that fast. Rudy's going to email us a report." Nate looked thoughtful. "Pappy never emails reports. He hates email."

Brad spared a quick thought to hoping they found a way to keep Rudy from running away from them. "A bloodborne pathogen. Like HIV?"

"Diseases transmitted by contact with contaminated blood. So he could have been infected somehow through a cut--" 

"He didn't work in a hospital or anything, he was a website designer," said Brad, thinking fast.

"--or any contact of bodily fluids besides saliva, basically."

"Like sex," said Brad.

Nate caught on immediately. "One would hope that even if he's going to cheat on his wife, he would at least be smart enough to use condoms."

"And yet people are that stupid every day, which is how diseases spread."

Nate frowned. "But there's nothing wrong with the girlfriend. She's still young and alive."

Brad's gaze caught on his computer screen. "Massive Dynamic," he said.

"She's not a researcher."

"But they do human testing," said Brad. "They make all kinds of pharmaceuticals. What if he signed up as a test subject through her?"

"What if _she_ signed up as a test subject?" ventured Nate.

"I don't think they let employees do that kind of thing. Liability whatever. We could ask Pappy and Rudy."

"Maybe you're right there, but that doesn't preclude his being a test subject."

"Wait. We really think Massive Dynamic killed a guy with their Phase III testing?" The words sounded ludicrous even coming out of Brad's own mouth. This was the shit of science fiction movies that ended with apocalypses or Charlton Heston screaming.

"Not on purpose," said Nate. "I don't see that happening. But accidents happen. Some kind of cross-contamination?"

"I don't like it," said Brad. He was willing to forget that he'd come up with it in the first place.

"We can call the wife and ask her if he did."

"You think he'd be sure to tell his wife about human trials that his girlfriend signed him up for?" asked Brad, and Nate's hand arrested its motion towards his desk phone.

"Our other options are to talk to Carolyn again or to get records from Massive Dynamic," said Brad. "And if we talk to her, not only do we risk her lying but we'll have to go to Massive Dynamic anyway."

Nate stood up. "I'll talk to Ferrando, see if we have enough to get things in motion on getting the records."

Brad sighed. "Sometimes the paperwork in the FBI makes me miss the Marine Corps."

Nate froze and gave him an uncertain look. "I understand the Marine Corps does paperwork, too," he said, sounding cautious to Brad's ears.

"Yeah, but not until _after_ they go in guns blazing," said Brad wistfully. "Here I get it on both ends, like I work in a brothel."

Nate's laugh sounded kind of hollow as he walked away. Brad frowned after him. That was something they'd have to deal with sooner or later.

***

The Massive Dynamic office was a glass monstrosity; as they approached the lobby entrance Brad craned his neck to look up at the side of the building. And up. And up. It reflected the clouds in a way that didn't remind him of nature at all.

"Brad?" Nate was holding the door open. Brad brought his head back into the game and caught up, following Nate into the marble lobby.

Ferrando had declared that they didn't have enough yet to justify a warrant for Massive Dynamic's medical testing records, but what he did have was just enough pull to get them a face-to-face with the CEO and hopefully convince her to give them what they wanted, anyway.

"We're here to see Nina Sharp," Nate told the receptionist in the lobby, flashing his badge along with a smile that made the receptionist grin back.

She checked her computer and said, "You're right on time. Take the last elevator on the right all the way to the top."

"Thanks so much," said Nate, leaving the smile on until he turned around. Brad could still see it lingering around his eyes as they went to the elevator, where a security guard waved them in off some unseen cue from the receptionist.

Brad waited until the doors closed in front of them to speak. "Does that boyish charm work for you a lot?" he asked, facing front.

"Constantly," said Nate, and Brad couldn't help his own smirk.

It was an express elevator, and they were almost at the top. "What can I say," Nate went on, "when you got it, you got it." He winked and the doors gave a soft chime and opened before Brad could summon any kind of response. He schooled his expression and straightened his cuffs instead, and they walked off the elevator with Nate back in the lead. The landing was done in white and had a wall of windows on their left; a large reception desk stood in the middle of the space, carrying on the theme of impeccable neatness. The papers were stacked neatly in the in-tray, identical pens stood in a wire container beside dual Mac monitors and the only plant in the room was a branch of pink orchids in some minimalist-looking vase. Nina Sharp's personal assistant was wearing a skirt and blouse combo that was probably worth at least two of Brad's suits, and she glanced up at them disinterestedly.

"Agents Fick and Colbert?" she asked, eyeing Brad's inexpensive suit in a way he refused to feel self-conscious about. He and Nate pulled out their badges again, and she waved them closer to look at them properly and write down their badge numbers on a post-it note before standing up and smoothing out her skirt.

"Follow me," she said, leading them to the large, white doors in the rear of the room and knocking sharply before opening one. "Your ten-thirty, Ms. Sharp," she said as Brad and Nate walked past her into the room, and she was gone again with only the click of the door closing.

Nina Sharp was middle-aged, wore black and had bottle-red hair; her fingers were laced before her on the desk in a calmly threatening way, and her gleaming manicure matched her lipstick. "Have a seat, gentlemen," she said in a voice with a hint of gravel to it. "Can Sophie bring you anything to drink? Coffee? Water?"

"We're fine, thanks, Ms. Sharp," said Nate, taking one of the black chairs in front of her desk. Brad was slightly too tall for his and stretched his legs out a little to compensate.

"Well, let's skip right to the point, shall we?" she went on. "I'm a busy woman and I rearranged my schedule to accommodate you as a favour to Stephen."

Brad realized belatedly that she was referring to Ferrando, who seemed to work better as a person without a first name, as far as Brad was concerned. "He sends his love," he assured, and she arched an eyebrow back.

Nate shot Brad a glance that didn't tell him much before leaning forward in his chair a little. "We're here about an investigation," he said. "A lead we're pursuing on an open case brought us to Massive Dynamic."

Nina Sharp leaned back in her chair. "What's the case?"

"I'm not at liberty--" Nate started. She cut him off.

"Agent Fick--you are Agent Fick, aren't you?--Right. Agent Fick, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that I have a higher national security clearance than you do. What's the case?"

A look flashed across Nate's face that Brad had seen about twice so far, and it wasn't a good look. He intervened. "It's a murder investigation," he said. "Weird circumstances."

She shot Brad a sardonic glance. "All of your department's cases are 'weird circumstances'. But very well. You're investigating a murder and you think my company has something to do with it? I'm sure this is the fifth such accusation we've had this week. Where's your warrant?"

"At the printer," Brad offered, and she snorted.

"What are you boys doing here? Fishing? What do you want to know? All of my guns are locked up and my assistant knows where I am every moment, so I'm afraid I'm not up for confessing to any assassination plots this morning."

Brad sighed. "We want to know if our murder victim was a human test subject for any research you might have been doing."

"If this is the connection you have between Massive Dynamic and your victim, don't you know if he was a subject already?"

Nina Sharp was a canny pain in the ass. "We're guessing," said Brad. Nina opened her mouth again but he went on, "His girlfriend, Carolyn Johnson, works for you."

Nina nodded slowly, as if she understood everything now. "Well, I'm sure you've both been doing this long enough that I don't have to tell you, but I will anyway: if you want our employee or lab records, you need a warrant."

Brad concentrated very hard for several seconds on maintaining his poker face, until he calmed down. She had them over a fucking barrel; she knew they had nothing.

Nate chose that moment to step back into the conversation. "We don't need a warrant to talk to some of your employees, with their consent," said Nate. "And yours."

"And why would I let you do that?"

"Because you have nothing to do with the death we're investigating and nothing to hide from us," said Nate winningly.

Brad watched Nate and Nina stare each other down for a small eternity; Nate could really hold a smile in place under pressure. And apparently Nate hadn't been exaggerating in the elevator, because she caved first.

"All right," she said, "I'm going to take you down to the labs myself. You may speak to whomever of my staff wishes to answer your questions and you will not touch anything. Are we clear?" And she stood up from behind her desk and led the way out of her office. "Sophie, push back my lunch meeting," she said on the way to the elevator.

It was a fast but tense ride down to the main floor of the labs; Nina led them straight over to a cluster of people working at computers and said, "These men are federal agents. You are not obligated to answer any of their questions. If they touch anything, have them escorted out of the building." The scientists all blinked at her and nodded hesitantly and she turned on her heel to leave, stopping only to say, "Give Doctors Patrick and Reyes my fondest regards," with a tight smile before leaving again.

When the lab door closed behind her, Brad let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. The scientist closest to them cast a glance at the door and then stuck out his hand.

"I'm Eric Kocher," he said, as Brad and Nate shook his hand. "What are you here about?"

Nate looked at Brad and shrugged minutely. Brad took the lead. "Do you know a Carolyn Johnson? She's on the janitorial staff."

Kocher frowned. "Little brunette? I've seen her around. Most of those guys are, well, guys, so she's memorable."

"She cleans in here?" Brad asked.

"We don't like to let the janitors in here, in case they fuck up something we've left running overnight," said Kocher. "They do the hallways and the testing areas, keep those sanitary."

"Did you do any testing last week?" Brad asked, warming to an idea.

Kocher nodded. "We had one running Wednesday and Thursday. A medical thing."

"And would Carolyn have cleaned that up?"

"I guess? Most of the janitors work weeknights."

"What kind of cleanup is it?" Brad asked. "Biohazards?"

Kocher thought for a second. "I guess that one would have been. I don't know, that's not really my territory. Dave knows more about it," he said, gesturing at a big guy with a crew-cut who was pipetting something at a nearby lab bench. He glanced up at the sound of his name.

"Federal agents!" he exclaimed, putting down his equipment and making a quick note on a piece of paper. "Am I under arrest? Oh no! I didn't hijack anything, I swear!" he laughed.

Brad's teeth grinding must have been audible, because Nate muttered, "I got this," and went over to talk to Dave. Brad was left alone with Kocher.

"He's a fucking idiot at everything in life except genetic research," said Kocher quietly, nodding at Dave. "So what are you guys investigating?"

"Can't tell you," said Brad, and Kocher shrugged. His gaze caught on his computer and he did a double-take. "I'm done compiling," he said, clapping Brad on the shoulder in a friendly way. "Back to work. Don't touch anything. Security here is mean."

"Thanks for the tip," said Brad, and stuck his hands in his pockets as he wandered to the other end of the lab bench, away from Kocher and Nate. There was a desk blocking off a corner of the lab, a beat-up wood veneer thing with a decent desktop humming away on it under a pile of paper. Sophie the personal assistant probably would have set the mess on fire as soon as look at it. Brad swept his gaze across the pile, idly, just bored, but then he blinked. There was a yellow carbon copy delivery invoice half-sticking out from under some biology journal. He glanced up discreetly but everyone in the room was ignoring him and Nate and Dave the fucking idiot geneticist (Brad thought this was his desk) were still talking. Brad reached out and tugged the corner of the delivery invoice until he could read all of it.

It was from a chemical supply company, made out to Dr. David McGraw, and Brad's eyebrows climbed into his hairline as he read the list and quantities of chemicals Dr. David McGraw had ordered. Either he was making drugs to supplement his important research job at Massive Dynamic, or Ray had been barking up the wrong tree. Brad stuck the paper back where he'd found it and wandered back over to Nate, sizing up Dave--who was still goddamn talking, about some experiment the janitors had thrown out from the sounds of it--and trying to decide if he looked like a criminal mastermind. Either he was the worst mastermind ever, or he was a fucking genius, because Brad wouldn't have trusted him to tie his own shoelaces correctly.

Brad looked back at Nate in time to catch a desperate, pleading look, probably not the first one Nate had sent his way, and cleared his throat hastily. Dave hesitated in his monologue for a second, glancing back at him, and Brad said, "Sorry, Agent Fick, we've got that--"

"Right!" Nate exclaimed, doing a great act of regret. "Almost forgot. Thanks, Dr. McGraw, it was good talking to you. We'll see ourselves out." Brad thought Nate was going to drag him out the door of the lab by the elbow but instead he just left Brad to trail in his wake.

"Fuck's sake," said Nate when they were halfway down the hall. Brad chuckled.

"Did you get anything useful out of him?"

"The testing last week had biohazardous waste and that was when I hit the wall of 'you need a warrant'." Nate frowned as they reached the elevator.

"So now we know there was medical testing last week," said Brad, "and that Carolyn may have been one of the ones to clean up the testing area."

The elevator door opened on the lobby as Nate looked at him. "So do we think our vic was a test subject, or are we pursuing the new theory you obviously have that his girlfriend picked up an infection during cleanup?"

"I think we've got enough on Carolyn to demand the records of the testing," said Brad. "And talk to her again. And we got a bonus out of the visit, too," he added, remembering the invoice with relish.

"What bonus?" Nate asked, sounding vaguely alarmed.

"I'll tell you in the car," said Brad.

***

Brad was never really emotionally prepared for PT. He told himself he was, but failed to be convincing. Nate dropped him off and then bailed; he'd stayed the first week in some show of support and everyone involved had regretted the decision. So now he left for the hour Brad spent there, probably to commune with his Blackberry for a while.

The waiting room of the place he went to was done in beige and green and was meant to be soothing but always put him on edge. The receptionist glanced up at him and smiled. "Brad? You're right on time. Go on back, Leslie's ready for you."

Leslie was a blonde drill sergeant whose torture chamber was behind the door marked 'Therapy 2'. She grinned up at Brad when he walked in and said, "Afternoon, Brad. Get changed and hit the table."

Brad shot a look at the massage table and suppressed a sigh. At least he didn't need help changing anymore.

PT massages weren't massages; they were a method of torture forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Brad got a hand around the edge of the table and gripped it hard as Leslie jabbed at his side.

"The scar tissue's clearing up," she said cheerfully as she hit a particularly terrible spot with a finger that felt like a lance she was trying to impale him on. "You're still in knots, though. Are you doing your stretches? I told Nate to make sure you were doing them."

This was why Brad had been forced to lie--no, exaggerate--to Nate that he was keeping up with the stretches (which hurt like a bastard). He was in cahoots with Leslie. Of course. "Yes, I'm doing the stretches," he said. "Your spy is doing his job."

Leslie's laugh was punctuated by another dig into Brad's lower back that made him twitch, and then she took her hands off him. "All right, time for the medicine ball. Then the treadmill and then we'll go over your stretches one more time."

Brad heaved himself off the table, having flashbacks to boot camp.

After another half an hour of destroying Brad, when he was left aching and broken and wishing for someone to just kill him, Leslie gave him a warm smile and said, "You're recovering really well, Brad."

"Thanks," he said, trying to make his voice sound normal and unstrained. His side was just one giant ache.

"In fact, I think we should talk to your doctor about clearing you for more active duty soon. I'm sure you're looking forward to getting back to work properly."

He let himself feel a tiny bit of hope at that. "Really?"

"Keep up with your stretches and I'll see you next week. We'll see how you're doing," she said with a look like she knew exactly which way was up and he'd better watch out. "In the meantime, though, if you want to try _carefully_ to do some more strenuous exercise, I don't think you're going to tear anything important. Just be sure you listen to what your body is telling you and don't overexert yourself."

Brad blinked. "More strenuous exercise. Like jogging?"

"Sure," said Leslie, putting away the medicine ball. "Tell Nate I said hi," she said over her shoulder.

Brad put two and two together. Oh. "Maybe I should get that in writing or he'll think I'm lying," he said, and Leslie laughed.

***

Brad hoped Nate hadn't woken up when he left the apartment, but Nate slept so shittily most of the time that he wasn't going to hold his breath. He was just going out for coffee, anyway. He'd be back shortly.

He was only halfway down the front steps of the building when he spotted a familiar person on the sidewalk, leaning against a lamppost. Brad slowed down, lingering on the bottom step. He was already significantly taller than most people but he had an appreciation for the psychological advantage of height.

"Dr. Kocher," he said, trying to sound like he was on top of this situation and hadn't just been caught daydreaming about his goddamn boyfriend on the way to fucking Starbucks.

"Agent Colbert," said Kocher. He glanced around like they were in a spy movie and someone was hiding in the garbage can ten feet away. "Can we talk? Somewhere more private?"

The apartment was absolutely out. "I was going to the coffee place a block over," he said.

"Fine," Kocher relented, and matched Brad's pace. He was silent for half a block, and then said, "I know more about the testing you were asking about than I let on, before."

Maybe someday Brad could have a Sunday devoid of cloak-and-dagger shit. Maybe. "And what might that be? Also, how did you find out where I live?"

"Google," was Kocher's answer to the latter question, as if that was an answer. Brad felt distinctly uncomfortable about that. "And I know what the testing was for."

"Don't keep me in suspense, Doctor."

"Just call me Eric, please. We do a lot of genetic research at MD; the testing was for a project trying to cure Werner's Syndrome."

Brad sighed to himself.

"There were fifty subjects," said Kocher. "Some people who had the condition, some carriers, and some control subjects. They all received the same treatment."

"And how was Carolyn Johnson connected to this?" Brad asked.

"Cleanup, like you suggested. I remembered seeing her on the Wednesday night when I left work."

"And precisely why couldn't you have said anything about this at the time?" Brad asked, stopping to hit the crosswalk button at the corner.

Kocher fidgeted some more and glanced around again, like he'd just realized they were out in public or was looking for snipers or something. Brad waited semi-patiently; this was like dealing with a drug snitch.

"The project should have been well past any catastrophic problems, but it turned out not to be," he said. "The treatment had no effect one way or the other on the control subjects or the active Werner's sufferers. But three of the gene carriers who got the treatment... died."

"Died," repeated Brad.

"From what I've heard, aged rapidly within twelve hours of receiving the treatment, and died. It was fucking weird."

"How come this is the first I'm hearing about this?" They were at the Starbucks; Brad reached out to open the door but Kocher lingered outside, apparently not willing to go in. Brad followed him to a shady spot next to the cafe windows, leaning a shoulder against the cold bricks.

"I think the project leader covered it up," said Kocher quietly.

Brad stared.

"You don't understand. A fuckup that bad, at that stage? The whole project has to go back to the drawing board. And it was a really expensive project. So many resources, Agent Colbert. They'd have lost their federal grant and the whole thing would have been scrapped."

"That is not an excuse to cover up three negligent deaths," Brad hissed.

"They'd all signed waivers," Kocher shot back, and then seemed to realize what he was saying. He shrank into himself a little. "I shouldn't be telling you any of this. I'll get fired and sued into oblivion. My grandkids will still be paying the settlement."

As if that was as important as four (or more) deaths on Massive Dynamic's collective head. Brad reined in his anger again. "I promise not to out you as the whistleblower," he said instead.

"For all the good that might do."

"Do you have any proof of the coverup you can give me?" Brad asked.

"No. It's technically all hearsay."

"Do you have evidence of the project testing, at least? Can you get that for me?"

"Can you get it yourself, with an anonymous tip?" Kocher looked pale and Brad realized he wasn't going to get any more out of the guy.

"The government appreciates your assistance and will keep your name out of this if we can," he said tiredly.

Kocher nodded and walked away, still looking around nervously.

Brad almost forgot the coffee he'd left home for in the first place, but made it back successfully with two cups and a pastry bag to find Nate still, thankfully, sacked out in bed. He was awake though, and lifted his gaze from his phone to smile at Brad in the doorway.

"That's where you went," he said, accepting his americano and a kiss.

"I come bearing not only caffeine, but news," said Brad.

"Do tell," said Nate, peering into the bag and taking out a cookie.

"I have an anonymous source inside Massive Dynamic who I think has blown this case wide open for us." Brad was unsurprised to see that Nate immediately got up and started looking for pants, still chewing. Sunday had been good while it lasted.

***

It was extremely satisfying to go back into the labs at Massive Dynamic with a search warrant for everything related to Project Tithonus. Especially after Nate told Brad that the project name seemed to be a reference to either Tennyson or Greek mythology. Brad hated scientists a little.

As a bonus, it turned out that Dave McGraw was in fact the head of Project Tithonus, which Kocher had conveniently forgotten to mention. Brad made sure they rounded up every scrap of paper in the vicinity of his desk, along with his hard drives, and figured Ray could thank him later for the break in his own investigation.

"You're smiling," said Nate as their team carted out box after box of files into the big van outside; McGraw and three other scientists had already been taken out for questioning.

"So?" Brad asked, wondering if he should stop.

Nate went back to observing the operation. "Just not an expression I get to see on your face very often," he said, shrugging a little.

"I smile when it counts," said Brad, a little affronted.

Nate smirked. "I appreciate that about you, Brad. Not that I'm not a little concerned that this--" he gestured at the agents bustling around, Kocher and several other scientists standing at the sidelines under watch and Nina Sharp probably on the phone with her legal team, "--this is what does it for you."

"Sometimes I really like my job," was all Brad could say about that, but he was pretty sure he was smiling even wider now.

***

Ray approached Brad three days later, while he was still in the throes of paperwork.

"What do you want, Person?" Brad compulsively saved his report before giving Ray the privilege of eye contact.

"Walt and I are finally almost done going through McGraw's assets," said Ray, perching on the edge of Brad's desk.

"You're welcome," said Brad. "And?"

Ray grinned. "Yeah, I owe you a favour," he said. "I definitely have enough paper trail and evidence of payment to tie him to the chemical purchase, and it doesn't seem to be drug-related. Not enough money changing hands for that."

Brad leaned back in his chair, listening to it squeak. "I hear a 'but' in there."

Ray made a face. "He managed to cover up--or somebody managed to cover up--what the shit was for or who he passed it on to. None of it's in his possession anymore, at least. I only found one name that seemed like it meant anything, in his phone records, but the number's a dead end now."

"Well, what's the name?"

"David Robert Jones," said Ray.

"Three names," said Brad. "Sure sign of a criminal mind."

Ray laughed but it sounded hollow. "I'm a little concerned about all this, Brad. What if Pappy and Rudy designed a doomsday machine?"

"They'd probably have said something," said Brad, settling down in his chair again to go back to his report. "Run the name past Pappy and Rudy, see if it rings any bells. Maybe see if you can hang this off Massive Dynamic, for shits and giggles."

"You're so much healthier looking when you have a bogeyman to take down," said Ray as he got off of Brad's desk and went back to his own.

"Vendettas are good for the soul, Ray," said Brad, distracting himself with a typo he'd just spotted.

Two paragraphs later, a throat cleared somewhere overhead. Brad blinked up at Ferrando, who was standing to the side of Brad and Nate's desk corral. "Sir," said Brad. "Sorry, I didn't see you there."

Ferrando waved it off. "Where's Agent Fick?" he asked.

"It's Thursday morning, he's off at his meeting thing," said Brad, saving his file again.

Ferrando nodded. "I just got off a call with the Director," he said. "David Weber's family thanked the Bureau formally for wrapping the case and returning his body. They're holding a private service this week, apparently."

"How much did we tell them?" Brad asked.

"I think just that it was ruled accidental. Service is probably going to be closed-casket, I'm guessing."

Brad turned that over in his mind, tried to decide how he felt about it all. Still mostly angry, it turned out.

"I came over to let you know that you and Fick did some great work on this case. The Bureau and Fringe Division-- _I_ am very proud of your results and we're glad you've become such an effective part of the team, Agent Colbert."

"Thank you, sir."

"How's the gunshot wound?"

"Healing quite well, sir. I'm cleared for active duty again."

Ferrando nodded. "Keep up the good work, Colbert. And keep looking after Fick. He's doing much better since you got here."

Brad had absolutely no idea how to handle that. "I will do that, sir," he managed.

Ferrando nodded again and went over to confer with Holsey before going back to his office.

It took a long moment for Brad to refocus on his computer screen.

_Effected arrest of Dr. David H. McGraw in connection with Project Tithonus coverup of deaths of Christopher Jones, Diana Morgan and William Chow. Accused was offered and accepted deal in exchange for information pertaining to another active investigation. No criminal charges laid in connection with the death of David Weber at this time; Carolyn Johnson reportedly pursuing Massive Dynamic for damages related to her accidental infection and pursuing treatment for same._

He finished off his report and filed it electronically. The anger wasn't going to be as simple to deal with.

 

THE END

*** 

"I'm sure you've heard all of the details about McGraw's arrest by now, through your FBI sources."

Nina got up from her desk abruptly and shut her office door, then turned on her white noise generator to be safe. "I would think you would have a better grasp on the concept of 'discretion', Mr. Jones," she hissed.

David Robert Jones reclined indolently in her visitor's chair--those were not supposed to be as comfortable as he was making it appear they were--and smiled smarmily at her. "You think your secretary doesn't know the wherefores of my comings and goings from this office? Really?"

"Sophie is a professional. I pay her enough to be." Nina sat back down behind her desk, clasped her hands on the blotter and glared. Jones seemed unaffected, as usual.

His pockmarked face twisted into a sneer. "I hope for your sake that's true. The FBI will be knocking on your door again."

"They're not going to find anything," she said.

"Excuse me if your reassurances don't ease my trembling heart." He stood up again. "The project is proceeding on schedule, even with McGraw out."

Nina raised an eyebrow. "He was nothing but a go-between anyway, wasn't he?"

"He was a very useful and punctual go-between, Nina. God knows you have enough of those to know their worth."

"Just get it done," she snapped. He was cutting into her lunch meeting as it was. "Next time you want to make contact, do it through proper channels instead of barging into my office."

"Don't brush me off next time I attempt proper channels and I might be tempted to obey," he said before swanning out the door again.

She was thinking of throwing her Baccarat paperweight at the closed door (right around head height) when her intercom trilled. "Your lunch is supposed to be starting now, Ms. Sharp," said Sophie over the line.

Nina stood up and fixed her skirt while her head cleared. She had more important priorities than Jones at the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> I am planning more in this series! Hopefully I write it faster than I did this part!


End file.
